CBM training: Carlsen reaches 2837 at the Tal Memorial

6/19/2012 – "If I am not mistaken, this was Carlsen's tenth tournament in a row with
a performance well above 2800," writes Steve Engelen of Oslo. Indeed Magnus
has reached a new high on the Elo scale and will appear at 2837 on the next
FIDE list. He also features in two examples picked out by our ChessBase
Magazin expert Dr Karsten Müller for today's instalment of his endgame column.

Carlsen reaches 2837 on the Elo scale

Steve Engelen of Oslo, Norway, writes: "If I am not mistaken,
this was Carlsen's tenth tournament in a row with a performance well above 2800.
It pushes him to a new all-time rating high at 2837 on the July FIDE list. Has
such a winning streak above 2800 ever been recorded before? In the last two
years and nine months Carlsen has won eleven tournaments: Nanjing 2009, London
2009, Wijk 2010, Bazna 2010, Nanjing 2010, London 2010, Bazna 2011, Biel 2011,
Grand Slam final 2011, Tal Memorial 2011, Tal Memorial 2012.

Preempting the next official FIDE rating list we take a look at the top twenty
in the Live Chess Ratings that are regularly
calculated by IM Artiom Tsepotan and IA Dr. Christopher Wright. This list is
updated to 18 June 2012, 15:24 GMT, i.e. it includes the results of the Tal
Memorial.

And here is the Norwegian's prodigious rating progress over the last eleven
years:

And here are his ratings over the past four years (the third column gives the
number of games played):

May 2012

2835

0

Mar 2012

2835

13

Jan 2012

2835

17

Nov 2011

2826

10

Sep 2011

2823

10

Jul 2011

2821

10

May 2011

2815

0

Mar 2011

2815

13

Jan 2011

2814

17

Nov 2010

2802

14

Sep 2010

2826

0

Jul 2010

2826

10

May 2010

2813

0

Mar 2010

2813

13

Jan 2010

2810

16

Nov 2009

2801

10

Sep 2009

2772

10

Jul 2009

2772

12

Apr 2009

2770

27

Jan 2009

2776

17

Oct 2008

2786

31

Jul 2008

2775

16

We proceed to the endgame lessons by Karsten Müller. For anyone who missed
it please check out his previous column "Carlsen
in Capablanca's footsteps", where the young Norwegian's victory against
Azeri GM Teimour Radjabov reminded him of Capablanca's famous win against Kan
in Moscow 1936.

Aronian's Fortress

When pawns are only on one wing the knight can often create a fortress against
the rook:

Karsten Müller in ChessBase Magazine

Do you like these lessons? There are plenty more by internationally renowned
endgame expert Dr Karsten Müller in ChessBase Magazine, where you will
also find openings articles and surveys, tactics, and of course annotations
by the world's top grandmasters.

See also

9/26/2017 – The final classical game. The finals has been relatively sedate with three draws until now. But it could all end today with one decisive game. Ding Liren has the black pieces today. It's going to be an exciting game. Games kick off at 13:00 CEST (7:00 AM EST) with live commentary from Tbilisi by GMs Evgeny Miroshnichenko and WGM Keti Tsatsalashvili and live updates by our reporters Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal.

See also

7/5/2017 – This is neither prank nor clever wording: Garry Kasparov will be playing in the official St. Louis leg of the Grand Chess Tour from August 14-19, 2017. Please note that this is the Rapid and Blitz competition, just as the ones held in Paris and Levuen these last weeks, and not the classical events. However, this is not an exhibition event, and will determine the official Grand Chess Tour rankings as well as FIDE ratings of the players. Here is the press release.

Video

Tired of spending hours and hours on the boring theory of your favourite opening? Then here is your solution, play an Anti-Sicilian with 3.Bb5 against 2...d6 or 2...Nc6, and 3.d3 against 2...e6. In 60 minutes you will get a crash course in how to avoid mainstream theory and in understanding the ideas of this Anti-Sicilian setup. After these 60 minutes you should be able to survive the Sicilian for a long time, without being bothered by new developments found by engine x supported by an x-core machine. Now that it finally comes down to understanding, let's play chess!